


Fight Through the Dark and Find the Spark

by fangirl_in_a_trenchcoat



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: 6+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Cancer, F/M, Flynn is an amazing friend, Good Parent Ray Molina, Happy Ending, Julie likes baking, Misunderstandings, Sick Character, and she’s pretty good at it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:48:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29157672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirl_in_a_trenchcoat/pseuds/fangirl_in_a_trenchcoat
Summary: She looked over across the street to Luke's house. She’d actually seen him multiple times ever since they’d met, they were neighbors after all. They’d talked, he’d asked about the bake sale - was disappointed there weren’t any cupcakes left, but the money was for a good cause so he’d conceded -, he seemed like a great guy.Did Julie have a crush on him? Maybe, who was to say? Flynn. Flynn was to say and she kept sayingask the cute neighbor out. She could make cupcakes again, that would be an excuse to go say hi. Or she could go see where the guitar was coming from. She did have cinnamon rolls...Or: Six times Julie resorted to baking and one time Luke did
Relationships: Alex Mercer & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie Peters, Flynn & Julie Molina, Julie Molina & Ray Molina, Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Comments: 14
Kudos: 160





	Fight Through the Dark and Find the Spark

**Author's Note:**

> Tw: cancer - one of the main characters has cancer and Rose has died from cancer so it is extensively discussed throughout the fic
> 
> I saw a tiktok that said how Alex and Katie (from 'Alexa and Katie') have similar energy - and I was like oh my god yes! - then I suddenly had a whole AU in my head - that wasn’t even that much about Alex :p - so here it is. (You don’t actually have to know anything about the show - it was just inspired from there)
> 
> I did a lot of research because I really wanted to get it as right as I could and I’m really, really hoping I haven’t gotten anything incredibly wrong!

**  
(1)**

This was a mistake.

That was the first thing that passed through Julie's head when she got out the door and tried to reach the car. She had clearly not thought this through and she needed help, but her dad was at a photoshoot and Carlos at a friend's house and Julie was so, so late.

She was trying to balance both boxes on her arms - which was going _great_ , okay? - but she also had to open the car door somehow and she really didn’t want to leave everything on the ground. It’d been raining all night, she'd hate it if all her hard work went to waste.

She huffed frustrated. She slowly tried to balance both boxes on one hand while she reached for the keys with the other, hoping this wouldn’t end in tears. She was doing great when suddenly her hand started shaking under the pressure and just as she rushed to balance the boxes, she did something wrong and witnessed both of them falling out of her hands in slow motion.

She scrambled to catch everything, her keys also falling on the ground in the process, when something - or better yet someone - caught the boxes before they could fall down, balancing them on Julie's hands once more.

"You're okay?" she heard a voice and turned to look at who had saved her from screaming alone in the street over her ruined cupcakes.

"Thank you so much," Julie said, coming face to face with a guy around her age, wearing a black coat and a bright orange beanie on his head, who was looking at her with a smile. Julie couldn’t help but smile back, grateful.

"You need some help?" he asked her.

"You’re not going to steal my car or anything?" Julie asked realizing she had no idea who this guy was and even though it was the middle of the day, there was no one else around.

"Well, that was my original plan, but if you’re asking me not to, I’ll have to rethink it," he said with a smirk as he bent down and grabbed her keys from the ground.

"Thanks," Julie said with a chuckle as he unlocked the car and opened the back door for her. Julie placed the boxes inside, one on top of the other, her hands finally free.

"Here," he said and gave her back her keys. "I’ll have to go find another car to steal."

Julie smiled. "I’m Julie," she said, holding her hand out.

"Luke," he said, shaking it. "I just moved in with my parents across the street."

"Oh! I was wondering who our new neighbors were," Julie said. "Left or right?" she asked, pointing at the two houses that were up for sale only a couple of weeks ago.

"Left," Luke said, "but one of my best friends moved in on the right, so you’ll probably see him around too."

"Well, you can always knock if you need anything, I owe you for saving my boxes," Julie said, "my mental stability wouldn’t have survived losing forty cupcakes that took me a whole Saturday to make." And it wasn’t that Julie didn’t know what she was doing, she was actually really good at baking. But the damn frosting and decorating had made her want to throw the pastry bag across the kitchen to the dining room.

Luke chuckled. "Party?" he asked.

"Bake sale," Julie said as she closed the door. "Raising money for cancer," she added with a smile. The cupcakes had frustrated her, but she was actually really proud of them. And really proud of the reason she’d made them.

Luke smiled slightly. "I’m glad they didn’t end up on the street then," he said.

"Yeah..." Julie said. "I really have to go, but it was nice meeting you. Thank you again."

"You don’t have to-"

"Oh, oh, wait," Julie said suddenly excited and leaned into the car, opening the top box. She took one of the cupcakes out offering it to Luke. "You definitely earned one," she said.

"Wow, okay, now I’m even happier I was here, this is beautiful!" Luke said looking at the cupcake.

"Thanks, Saturday well spent," Julie said with a smile.

"You have talent." The frosting was purple, decorated with little black notes and pentagrams all around. "I feel bad eating this," he said. "Does it taste as good as it looks?

"I sure hope so, I’m planning to sell them all."

"You like music or was this random?" he asked.

"No, I uhm- I do. It’s kind of symbolic... Look, I’m sorry, but I’m already so late and I also have to pick up my best friend on the way-"

"Yes, right, sorry," Luke said and stepped back as Julie opened the driver's door and got inside. Luke took a bite from the cupcake and his eyes went wide. "Oh my God, this is so good. If you don’t sell all of them, I’m buying whatever’s left."

Julie laughed. "Sounds like a plan," she said. "I’ll see you around."

"Good luck," Luke said as she started the car.

"Thank you." She smiled one last time as she drove off.

Flynn thankfully didn’t live too far away, but Julie was already supposed to be there twenty minutes ago and she’d already gotten fourteen texts from her. She pulled over right outside her house, Flynn waiting on the driveway, holding a large box too. Julie got out of the car and went around to open the other back door.

"Where have you been? We’re so late," Flynn said as she let her box next to Julie’s.

"I know, I’m sorry," Julie said as they got back into the car, "dad had to work and Carlos is at a friend of his, they said they would come by later. I had the bright idea of carrying both boxes out on my own and I almost lost all the cupcakes."

"Seems like you saved all forty," Flynn said, glancing back at the boxes.

"Well, thirty nine," Julie said with a smile as she started the car again.

"You started eating the merchandise?" Flynn said with a snort.

"No, actually my new neighbor helped me save them, so I gave him one. He liked it."

"And you liked him?" Flynn asked casually.

"What? No, I don’t even know him!" Julie said defensively.

"Girl, you are beaming, don’t lie to me."

"Well, he was nice," Julie conceded, "and he did save the cupcakes so that’s in his favor. And he was also kind of cute. And his smile was pretty."

"Hmm, right, so when’s the wedding?" Flynn asked.

"Shut up," Julie said with a chuckle.

"I’m just saying, your last neighbors were an old married couple, if you’ve upgraded to _a cute boy with a pretty smile_ ," she said mimicking Julie’s voice with a dreamy undertone making her roll her eyes, "that’s not the worst thing in the world."

"Yeah, when you put it like that it makes sense."

"That’s because I’m always right," Flynn said as Julie entered the parking lot and thankfully found a spot quickly. "Okay! Let's go raise the most money for fighting cancer anyone’s ever seen!"

Julie smiled. "I like your energy."

"Hell yeah," Flynn said as she got out and went to grab her box. Julie followed. She really wanted to raise as much money as she could, but also kind of hoped a cupcake would remain. It’d be nice to have an excuse to see Luke again.

  
  


**(2)**

Julie had always loved music. She loved singing, playing, writing lyrics, everything, it had always felt so right to her. It was a part of who she was, flowing out of her, making everything right in the world.

And then her mom had passed away. The one who had introduced her to all of that, who had taught her how to play the piano, wrote songs with her, sang with her... Julie didn’t feel like singing anymore.

Her junior year had been a blur, days just passing by without her realizing. Things were slowly getting better, she was starting her senior year, trying to move on and she knew she had her family and friends to help her with whatever she needed. She couldn’t be any more grateful for them.

What she’d also discovered was that baking calmed her down. She wasn’t sure why exactly, she’d never cared much for cooking, but she was feeling sad one night and she wanted something sweet, so she’d decided to bake cookies at 2 am. She’d done a pretty good job and having something to do, a specific set of rules to follow, had distracted her enough to make her feel better. The cookies had also definitely helped.

Ever since then, she always resorted to baking when she got sad or nervous about something. It didn’t quite have the same effect as singing, but it was good for now. And she’d definitely get back to singing at some point, just... not now.

Which kind of explained why she was awake at 1 am making cinnamon rolls. It was a Friday night and she hadn’t been able to get herself to fall asleep no matter what she did that whole week. She had to reapply for the music program at her school, she’d already missed a whole year, but that meant she had to play the piano and sing. And Julie didn’t know if she could do either. It’d been a year, maybe she didn’t even know how to anymore.

So cinnamon rolls it was.

She tried to be quiet, not wanting to wake up her dad or brother. To be honest though, who wouldn’t want to wake up and find handmade cinnamon rolls?

She'd started out about two hours ago, knowing this was going to take time. Her dad wasn’t thrilled that she was staying up so late baking when she could do that at any point during the day, but he also realized it helped. Also it was Friday night, she was probably staying up later than usual anyway, better do something creative with it.

She looked into the oven seeing that the rolls had a beautiful golden brown color and had actually rose like they were supposed to. She took them out, letting them cool for a while and then poured the icing over them. The kitchen really smelled amazing.

She moved them out of the tray putting them in a big platter, admiring her work and grabbed one, taking a bite. She did have talent. Maybe she should open up a bakery or something if the singing thing doesn’t work out.

Okay, no, that wasn’t the plan. She’d find her way back. She _needed_ to find her way back.

She moved outside on the porch with a sigh, still eating her cinnamon roll. Music used to be so easy for her, it just made sense! She’d known she wanted to become a musician ever since she was seven and ten years later she was pretty sure she still knew. She just wished she had the confidence to jump right back into it.

She closed her eyes with a sigh, choosing to focus on the cinnamon roll instead. Maybe a bakery wasn’t such a bad idea.

She was getting ready to go back inside - it was still late August and even though there was a pleasant breeze in the air, it was still too warm for her - when she heard something. It was faint, but everything was quiet around her, it wasn’t hard to recognize the sound. A guitar.

She waited for it to continue and it came again a few seconds later. She looked over across the street to Luke's house. She’d actually seen him multiple times ever since they’d met, they were neighbors after all. They’d talked, he’d asked about the bake sale - was disappointed there weren’t any cupcakes left, but the money was for a good cause so he’d conceded -, he seemed like a great guy.

Did Julie have a crush on him? Maybe, who was to say? Flynn. Flynn was to say and she kept saying _ask the cute neighbor out_. She could make cupcakes again, that would be an excuse to go say hi. Or she could go see where the guitar was coming from. She did have cinnamon rolls...

Yeah, sure, why not? Was it 1:30 am? Sure. But she apparently wasn’t the only one awake.

She went back in and put a couple of them on a plate. There were still plenty for her dad and Carlos.

She crossed over the street, hoping she wasn’t going to get killed in the middle of the night. They lived in a pretty safe neighborhood, but still. Walking around at 1:30 am with a plate of pastries wasn’t the smartest move she’d ever made. Maybe this was weird, maybe she should go back and focus on her own problems, it _was_ 1:30 am, people don’t just come over to say _hi_ at 1:30 am...

"Julie?" 

Julie was almost startled at her name being called. There was a little backyard connecting the two houses that had come into better view once she was across the street and there were three boys looking back at her. Luke was lying on a little couch, with his head on a brown haired boy's lap wearing a red flannel, and he was holding a guitar against him even though he looked half asleep already. There was another blond boy on a lounge chair on the other side of the couch, wearing a pink hoodie, who’d been looking at something on his phone, but had now turned to look at Julie too. She’d definitely seen both of them around before.

"Hi," Julie said, willing the situation to become not awkward. What had she even been planning? "I heard the guitar..." she started.

"Dude, I told you you can’t be playing at 1 am!" the blond boy said with a sigh. "You’re waking people up!"

"Oh, no, no," Julie rushed to say, "I was awake, that’s why I heard you. I’m Julie, I live across the street."

"I'm Reggie," the boy with the flannel said with a smile, "that’s Alex" - he pointed to the blonde boy who waved - "I'm guessing you already know Luke?"

"I saved her cupcakes a week ago," Luke said with a smile as he moved to sit up, wincing in the process. She thought she noticed an apprehensive look from Reggie on Luke’s movement, but it was gone far too fast to be sure.

"I’m still very grateful for that," Julie said.

"You can come in if you want, I promise they’re both upstanding citizens like me," Luke said nodding at his friends.

" _You’re_ the upstanding citizen? Okay," Alex said with a snort just as Julie moved over the little fence door, entering the backyard.

"Are those cinnamon rolls?" Reggie asked like an excited puppy.

"Oh yeah," Julie said almost forgetting she was holding them. "I couldn’t sleep so I started baking and then I heard the guitar and thought maybe bringing delicious pastries over is going to make this seem less weird," she said, "which I’m realizing it doesn’t."

"Are you kidding? This is great," Reggie said as she left the plate on the little table in front of the couch and moved to sit on Luke's other side when he nodded at her.

"I only brought two though, didn’t know there were three of you," she said.

"I cannot remember the last time I had any alone time," Alex said with an overdramatic sigh as he reached to cut some of the pastry. He probably didn’t mind that much.

"Probably before the band," Luke said.

"You guys have a band?" Julie asked.

Both Alex and Reggie started choking on the bites they’d taken, but recovered pretty quickly and turned to look at her.

"I'm sorry, what?" Alex asked.

"Luke _I'm in a band_ Patterson didn’t tell you he was in a band?" Reggie asked.

"We didn’t get to that," Luke said with a shrug as he took a bite from the cinnamon roll too. "Oh my God," he said, closing his eyes, "you’re my new favorite person."

"Hey!" the guys said.

"I'm sorry, but who else smuggles pastries in here?" he said.

"Going on a diet?" Julie asked with a smile.

"Well, a cinnamon roll is not going to kill me," he said with a chuckle.

"Okay, so who lives next door? I’ve definitely seen you both around here," Julie asked trying to keep the conversation going. She liked them.

"That would be me," Alex said.

"But I like to think I stay over enough to be considered a permanent resident as well," Reggie added with a grin. "Also if you just show up with pastries every once in a while I’m moving in permanently."

"Well, I have a dilemma to work through so I’m planning to spend a lot of time in the kitchen until things make sense. My brother's gonna love me," she said thinking how excited Carlos got every time she baked something new for breakfast. Or brunch. Or literally at any time during the day.

"What dilemma?" Luke asked. "If I’m not overstepping," he added when she turned to look at him.

"No, it’s..." She sighed. "I’m reapplying for the music program in my school and I haven’t sung anything in a while so I don’t really know how that’s going to go. I’m seriously thinking about opening a bakery instead."

"I would be your most loyal customer," Reggie said making her smile.

"You like singing?" Luke asked.

Julie wasn’t sure what the right words were here to describe what singing meant to her. Because yes, of course she liked singing, but she didn’t just _like_ singing, she lived for music. She needed music in her life. She’d been pushing it away for so long in fear that it wasn’t going to be the same and it felt like there was something missing from her.

"Yes," she said, somehow pouring her emotions into one word, trying to convey that this wasn’t just a hobby she was going to give up after she’d graduated.

And Luke... he seemed to understand. Well, he was in a band, he obviously did like music too.

"You’re any good?" he asked with a smirk.

Julie looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Plenty good," she said standing her ground, her confidence suddenly reappearing if only to prove that she could do this. The piano playing should be muscle memory after so many years. And the singing... well, she couldn’t have just forgotten how to sing, could she?

"Maybe you could join us sometime," he said, smiling.

Julie felt something warm inside her chest. "That might be nice," she said.

They talked for a few more minutes and really, Julie could have stayed there for hours, but one, it was way too late and two, Luke was obviously exhausted, but too nice to say anything and shoo her away. Well, he did seem to enjoy her company, but Julie decided to take that weight off his shoulders.

"I should get going," she said, "not that I don’t enjoy this, but it _is_ 2 am. Also I don’t know how my dad is going to react if he realizes I’m across the street talking to three teenage boys in the middle of the night," she added. She wasn’t that worried about that though, her dad trusted her enough to trust her decisions.

"Don't be a stranger," Luke said with a smile.

"Also, don't be afraid to come tell us off if we're making too much noise," Alex added. "It's easy to get carried away."

"Will do," Julie said with a chuckle as she got up. "Goodnight," she added as she walked back outside the fence.

She heard a chorus of different 'goodnights' and smiled to herself. Definitely worth making cinnamon rolls at 1 am on a Friday night.

  
  


**(3)**

Julieran up her driveway and threw the front door open, tossing her bag somewhere on the floor in the process.

"Dad?" she shouted.

Her dad came running from the living room and was about to say something when Julie shouted. "I got back in!"

"You did?" he said with a grin and pulled her into a hug, spinning her around.

"Yes!" Julie said when he put her back down. "I went in and I played and I sang, dad, I don’t think I’ve ever sounded better before. Seriously."

"That’s amazing, mija," he said with a smile, "I'm so happy for you."

"So am I!" Julie said not able to keep her voice down.

"And so will be your friends down the street," he added, "they came looking for you about twenty minutes ago, they wanted to see how it went."

"Oh my God, I should go tell them-" Julie started, ready to run back out again when her dad stopped her.

"They also said they wouldn’t be here for the next hour or so, so you should take a deep breath," he said with a chuckle, "and maybe text them if you can’t wait."

"Yeah," Julie said not able to stay still, "no, no this is big news, the kind of news you say face to face. I should make brownies!" she exclaimed and went to the kitchen.

"Okay?" her dad said confused.

"We're _celebrating_ dad, you like brownies, don’t you?" Julie said as she took out a bowl and opened the fridge.

"I do like brownies."

"Great!"

"Are you sure sugar is what you need right now?" he asked, crossing his arms in front of him with a chuckle.

"We all need a little sugar sometimes," she said taking out the sugar from the cupboard.

Julie didn’t waste any more time getting to work and mixing the ingredients together. This past month had been... different. She’d met Luke and then Alex and Reggie, she’d heard them play, they’d invited her to join them in a jam session or two and even though she’d started out timidly, the second she’d gotten that first note out, it was almost like the dam had broken and it had all poured out of her. Luke was acting mad at her because her saying that she was just _plenty good_ was a major understatement and he felt misled.

He’d gone so far as to give her a song to sing for her teacher in order to get accepted back. It was beautiful and Julie had teared up, although had kept it to herself, and they’d helped her practice and her teacher loved it and she was back in the music program, did she mention that?

She'd also just started delving back into writing. There were so many thoughts running through her head and so many things she needed to write down, she almost felt like there wasn’t enough time. And maybe Luke had helped there too, because that boy was a musical genius or something and lyrics flowed out of him just as easily and together they were creating beautiful melodies and okay, had Julie's crush grown? Probably. We don’t talk about that.

So she started making brownies, knowing the guys would appreciate them. She had successfully gotten music back in her life, but she still enjoyed baking, it gave her something to do - and eat - and so did the people around her to be honest.

She was pretty sure she was still too thrilled to pay full attention to the recipe, but an hour later she had a plate in front of her that looked decent enough and was just about to taste one when Carlos came running into the kitchen.

"Are they done?" he asked, looking at the plate on the counter.

"Yes, but I haven’t-" she started to say when Carlos grabbed one and took a bite.

"This is so good," he said, his mouth still full, but Julie was too happy to say anything.

"It is? I’m glad," she said with a smile as she grabbed one herself.

"You are my favorite sister."

"I'm your only sister," Julie pointed out.

"But still my favorite," Carlos said as he grabbed another brownie and started walking to the living room. "Oh, your boyfriend came back a few minutes ago, I saw a car stopping outside his house."

"Luke's not my boyfriend," she said.

"Funny you knew which one I meant," Carlos said with a cheeky smile and disappeared.

Julie shook her head and grabbed her phone from the counter. They’d been popping up uninvited in each other's houses a lot this past month, but Julie still didn’t know Luke's parents that well so she’d prefer it if he was aware she was coming by.

She dialed his number and waited. She got no answer. She didn’t think much of it and called Alex instead. Those three were always together, if she couldn’t get hold of Luke she was bound to find Alex or Reggie.

"Hey, Julie," came Alex's response a couple of seconds later.

"Hey! My dad told me you came by earlier," she said.

"Yes! How did it go? Did you get in?" he asked genuinely interested, making her smile. And Julie wanted to wait until they were all together, but she couldn’t anymore.

"Yeah, I did!" she said, grinning and heard cheering from the other end, congratulating her.

"We never doubted you," Reggie's voice was heard somewhere in the background.

"That's true, even _I_ wasn’t worried about today," Alex agreed.

"Are you home? I called Luke but he didn’t answer. I made brownies!" Julie said.

"Reggie and I are at my place, Luke is asleep, he didn’t feel that well," Alex said.

"Oh, is everything okay?" she asked her mood falling ever so slightly.

"Yeah, yeah, just tired," Alex said. "He's probably coming down with something. You can come over here if you want to though, we're not really doing anything."

"And we need details about how the song went," Reggie shouted in the background again.

"Okay, okay," Julie said with a smile, "you want me to bring some brownies?"

"Julie, what kind of question is that?" Alex said. "Of course you bring the brownies."

Julie chuckled. "Okay, I’m on my way," she said and hung up.

* * *

Julie was almost worried. Key word _almost_. She hadn’t heard from Luke at all yesterday although she supposed that had already been answered by the guys. If he wasn’t feeling well it made sense that he couldn’t come over or even call, but the next morning Julie had run into Alex when she was leaving for school and Luke wasn’t with him and okay, yes, maybe he was actually sick, that’s what Alex had said, it made sense.

But then he wasn’t there the next day either and Julie had still not heard from him and now she was slowly started freaking out. Maybe she was overreacting. Probably she was overreacting because Alex and Reggie weren’t freaking out so everything was probably fine and Julie's mind was reeling.

The third day she still hadn’t heard from or seen Luke was starting to make her paranoid and she was about to march over there just to make sure he _was_ actually in the house even if it was 10 pm. She'd gone over there at 1 am and no one had even bothered, this wouldn’t be any different.

Just as she was seriously considering barging into their backyard, her phone started ringing. She turned to answer thinking it was probably Flynn calling to see if she was still on edge - yes, she was worried and it showed - only to see a different name on the screen.

"Luke?" she answered immediately.

"Hey," he said.

"Are you okay? Because Alex and Reggie play it cool, but you still dropped off the face of the Earth! I was seriously considering breaking into your house," Julie said.

"I am such a bad influence on you," he said tiredly, but there was a smile in his voice.

"Well, what can you do now?" Julie said trying to shake the nerves away. Luke was obviously okay, she was talking to him, wasn’t she?

"The guys told me you got back into the music program," he said, "not that we ever thought you wouldn’t, you are insanely talented."

"Thank you," she said, "for everything. I mean I wouldn’t have gotten there if it wasn’t for you."

"Doubtful."

"You gave me a song!"

"You liked it?"

"Yes, Luke, I did," she said with a smile. "And then I made brownies, but you didn’t come over to eat one."

"Alex did bring one over though," he said. "I couldn’t eat it, but I’m sure it tasted great. It definitely looked great."

"Why couldn’t you?" Julie asked.

Luke hesitated. "Haven’t been feeling great these past couple of days."

"So you _are_ sick? Alex said you were coming down with something."

"Yeah, I guess you could say that," Luke said not doing much to calm Julie down.

"Are you sure you’re okay? You sound weird," she said. "I mean you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to and you obviously have Alex and Reggie, but still I’m here if you need anything."

Luke didn’t answer immediately and Julie was about to ask him if he was okay again when she heard him say, "Thank you." She felt like his voice was shakier on those two words. Almost as if she was missing some big part of the conversation.

"You know, I’ve been going through some older songs I’d started long ago," she said changing the subject. She could feel there was something wrong, but Luke would obviously say something if he wanted to. Until then she could still work as a distraction. And when it came to Luke, music was a guarantee to get his mind off of anything else. "A lot of them have potential."

"I’m shocked," Luke said and Julie could practically see him rolling his eyes at her.

"Oh okay then, I guess I can find someone else to help me," she said. "Maybe I’ll work on them with Reggie, turn them all country."

"God no," he said making her chuckle. "What kind of songs? What are we working with? Lyrics or music?"

"Take your pick, I have something for everyone," Julie said grabbing her notebook from her nightstand.

They fell into an easy routine they had developed all this time. Luke still sounded worn out, but he was also pouring himself in the music, he sounded happy. And yes, maybe Julie was overreacting, people get sick all the time. That weird shaky feeling in her chest was probably her jumping to conclusions.

  
  


**(4)**

_"And it's one, two, three, four times  
That I'll try for one more night  
Light a fire in my eyes  
I'm going out of my mind..."_

Julie sang quietly. She'd started writing that song with her mom and left it aside for a long time. She and Luke had finished it. It sounded amazing to be honest. Julie almost felt she’d become part of the band after all the songs they'd sung together.

She wrote something down on her notebook as she took a bite from the banana bread on top of the piano. This time she hadn’t even been nervous, she'd just craved banana bread. The house certainly did smell amazing.

She started playing the melody again, getting lost in her own little world for a moment there. She almost didn’t hear the knock on the garage door.

Her head snapped up and noticed Luke leaning against it.

"Hey!" she said with a smile. "Do you just get summoned when someone starts playing music?" she asked amused as he walked inside.

"Of course, it’s my superpower," he said as he walked in and sat down beside her on the piano bench. "I could also hear you from outside," he added with a smile. "The acoustics are great in this street."

"Ah, well, it’s still early. And you know, the neighbors haven’t called the cops on you and the guys yet, so I think I’m probably good."

"Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?" Luke asked with a pout Julie found adorable.

"It means you’re loud," she said. "I haven’t heard you in a while now that I think about it. You didn’t break up, did you?" she teased. She doubted anything could break these boys apart.

"Don’t even joke about it," he said with a small smile as he leaned on the piano. "We've been banned from our rehearsal space until further notice."

"Isn’t your rehearsal space your backyard? And or garage?"

"Yep."

"You got banned from your own house?"

Luke’s phone started ringing, but he just declined the call, leaving it on the piano. "My mom wants me to rethink my priorities."

"College?" Julie asked.

"Oh, no, I wish," Luke said with a snort. "She just thinks I’ve been focusing way too much time in the band even though really, I know my limits. And I have the guys! Alex would kill me if I did something I shouldn’t. Reggie would just get sad and we’ve agreed that’s a criminal offense..."

"Of course," Julie said.

"So, I really don’t see the issue here. Sometimes it’s almost like music is the only thing that gets me through the day."

"I feel like I’m missing something," Julie said trying to follow the conversation but feeling like something didn’t make sense. She completely understood the last part, she still had bad days and if she could get lost in music for the better part of them, she’d definitely do so. Anything to stop her from going down a path she didn’t want to be in.

"Yeah..." Luke sighed as his phone started ringing again. He declined it once again.

"You want some banana bread? Freshly baked," Julie said pushing the plate towards him. "Sugar makes everything better?"

Luke chuckled, but his smile fell. "I don’t know."

"You don’t like it?"

"No, I do. I did. I don’t know," he said again. Upon seeing Julie's confused expression he continued. "What happens if I do take a bite and it doesn’t taste as it should? Isn’t it better to just stay with the memory of how it should be?"

"I mean... it’s pretty good? Carlos already took one fourth of it and left. He hasn’t complained."

"No, I don’t doubt your baking skills, I’m sure it’s amazing."

"Luke, you are not making much sense," Julie said as she turned her body around on the bench to face him better.

Phone ringing. Again. Call declined. Again.

"Maybe you should get that," she said.

"No, it’s fine, as long as I’m declining the call it means I’m in a position to do so," Luke said.

"Did something else happen?" she asked softly.

Luke turned around to face her too. He looked better than he did a few days ago, that was certain, but he still looked plain tired. There was something in the back of Julie's mind threatening to come back up, but she tried to rationalize the situation. This wasn’t the same.

"Other than fighting with my mom? Nothing else specific. Sometimes it’s just too much. And I love my mom, I really do, but sometimes the worrying just gets too much."

And Julie wasn’t exactly sure what he meant, but she could understand up to a point. For a long time after her mom passed away everyone had been walking on eggshells around her waiting for her to snap. Or break. And she loved her family and Flynn and she really wouldn’t have made it through without them, but sometimes it got to be too much. Sometimes she just wanted to be treated as a normal person.

"I think I get it," she said quietly, making him nod.

"And then there’s you," he suddenly said making Julie snap up. "And I really don’t want to lose this." He pointed in between them.

"You can’t," Julie said. She hadn’t missed how they’d moved closer and closer to each other.

Before she even knew what she was doing, she was leaning in and - _oh my God_ \- Luke was also leaning in and then-

Phone ringing.

Again.

Luke let his head fall down with a sigh. He pulled back and once again declined the call. "Maybe I should get back before Alex murders me," he said.

Julie took a second to clear her head because _oh my God, did I just almost kiss Luke?_ and nodded. _Do we just act like nothing happened? Do we go for it if there’s another chance?_

Luke got up and so did Julie, she felt like staying behind the piano would only make things more awkward and the last thing she wanted was for things to be awkward between them. He took a few steps around the piano about to grab his phone when he swayed slightly and had to catch the edge of the piano to right himself.

"Woah, Luke." She rushed next to him, putting an arm around his waist. "You good?"

"Yeah, yeah, I’m fine," he said keeping his eyes closed. "Okay, that might be a lie," he said again and Julie noticed how his knuckles on the hand gripping the piano were white.

"Okay, hey," she said, her arm that was around him gripping him a bit tighter, "walk with me to the couch."

Luke did as was told, supporting more of his weight on her than she expected. It wasn’t that the couch was far or anything, but he’d looked fine a couple of minutes ago. Well, maybe not one hundred percent fine, she could feel the tiredness rolling off of him in waves, but that wasn’t that much a cause for concern, was it?

"What do you need?" she asked him, not sure what else she was supposed to do. She wasn’t even a hundred percent sure she knew what was going on.

"Nothing, just, give me a minute," he whispered as he took a deep breath, his eyes still closed.

Julie looked at him, still surprisingly not freaking out, when his phone rang again. She quickly got up and grabbed it from the top of the piano to see it was Alex. Without a second thought, she answered.

" _Luke Patterson, I swear to God-_ " Alex started to say.

"Alex, it’s Julie," she cut him off.

"What happened?" his tone completely changed from angry to worried in a second.

"I-I'm not sure, we're at the garage-"

"I’m coming over," he said and hung up before Julie could say anything more.

She looked back at Luke to find him staring at the ceiling blearily. "You really don’t have to worry," he said.

"You almost passed out, of course I need to worry!" she said, the plan of not freaking out not going great.

Luke seemed like he wanted to say something more, but it was at that moment Alex came running through the doors. He spotted Luke on the couch and immediately went in, sitting beside him, looking him over to make sure he was okay.

"The next time you decline my calls, I’m going to Emily," he said.

"Doesn’t the fact that I press decline mean I’m alive and well?" Luke said, his voice drowsier than before.

"I like hearing your stupid voice," Alex said making Luke smile.

"Sorry," Luke said.

"It’s okay," Alex said, his voice going softer. "Come on, let’s go home." He wrapped an arm around Luke's waist, passing Luke's arm over his shoulders.

Luke did get up, but not without swaying once again. Thank God, they only lived across the street.

"I don’t enjoy chemo."

Julie's breath got caught in her throat.

"I know, buddy," Alex said. Like these weren’t life changing news that had just hit Julie in the face. But of course Alex knew. Of course Alex and Reggie knew everything.

"Chemotherapy?" she asked, still trying to process it.

Both of them jumped up a bit, almost as if having forgotten Julie was still there. To be honest, Julie wasn’t sure she was one hundred percent there.

Alex looked in between them not sure what he was supposed to say. Luke looked only slightly more sobered up than before.

"Well, it was gonna come out eventually," he said. "I just didn’t think it’d matter to you."

And Julie wanted to speak, she wanted to say something, wanted to say _so much_ because no, she hadn’t been overreacting all this time. God, why couldn’t she have been overreacting?

She apparently stayed frozen, eyes wide, for longer than normal because Luke nodded his head saying, "Wouldn’t be the first time I was wrong."

And Julie couldn’t speak. She still couldn’t explain what exactly was happening inside her head and how everything seemed to click together bringing up past memories and new ones and making want to lock herself in her room and cry herself to sleep.

And then Luke and Alex were leaving and the time to explain was over and that was it. She was in the studio, alone.

She stayed in her spot for a couple more seconds, until she couldn’t take it anymore. She ran back inside the house, closing the door behind her and falling back against it.

Her dad looked over from the dining room where he was looking at something on his laptop. "Julie? Everything okay?"

Julie looked at him, feeling her whole body shaking.

He must have noticed because he got up and walked over to her. "Mija, qué pasó?" he asked.

Julie took a shaky breath, wanting to explain everything, but all she could do was lunge forward and wrap her arms around him. Her dad didn’t hesitate to move his arms around her and bring her closer and that’s when she fell apart.

She cried and she sobbed and she couldn’t find it in her to stop, because this wasn’t fair. How was any of this right?

At some point, her dad moved them over to the living room and they sat down on the couch, Julie curling on his side. This wasn’t fucking fair.

"Luke has cancer," she said quietly, the words feeling plain wrong.

She felt her dad tense, bringing her closer. "I’m so sorry, Julie."

"A-and now he thinks I-I hate him because I couldn’t exp-lain," she sobbed. "Dad, I don’t- This is not right."

"It's really not," he said, one of his hands coming up and going through her hair. "But you can still explain, this is not over."

"If something bad happens..."

"Don’t think like that, baby. I know it’s hard, especially after last year, but you can’t start like that. Did he just find out or he just hadn’t told you?"

"I don’t know," Julie said, taking a shaky breath, "I think he’s known for a while... Definitely over a month." There were all these little details coming back to her that she just hadn’t paid enough attention to.

The way Luke would either try to make the most of the energy he had, or stay in the more quiet side of things, curling up against someone and writing lyrics on his journal, trying chords out on his guitar. The way the guys would always stop in between a couple of songs, take a break and then continue whether Luke was vibrating or not. The way Alex and Reggie weren’t stuck on Luke, but they always kept an eye out for him.

And even the bigger things. Luke disappearing for three days after coming back from _somewhere_. Alex saying he was coming down with something, Luke saying he was sick - or well, _you could say that_ \- and not elaborating. His mom worrying that he was pushing himself, Luke worrying about the banana bread not tasting right...

"What if he’s still mad at me?" she asked. She didn’t want to lose Luke, she couldn’t just _lose_ Luke after everything.

"Julie, he knows you. You care about him and he cares about you. I don’t know what he’s going to do, but you need to keep in mind that this is incredibly hard for him and he didn’t expect you to react like that. I know you can work things out, but it might take some time."

Julie sniffled as she stayed on her dad's side. She did hear footsteps coming down the stairs after a while and Carlos came into the living room.

"What happened?" he asked worried, his eyes darting between Julie and their dad.

"Julie had a misunderstanding with Luke," her dad said, "but they will work it out." He squeezed her shoulder.

"Oh," Carlos said, thinking about what he was supposed to do. "You want some banana bread? Sugar makes everything better?"

Julie laughed wetly. "I left it at the studio."

"I’ll go get it," Carlos said, happy to help.

"Thanks," Julie called after him.

"You’ll work this out, Julie, I know you will," her dad said again.

Julie sighed. She really hoped her dad was right.

  
  


**(5)**

Julie tried calling, but got no answer. She tried texting, but still nothing. And she really didn’t want to explain everything over text, but it had been two days and she was freaking out.

"I don’t know what else to do, Flynn," she said with a sigh over the phone. "It wasn’t supposed to be like this."

"Why don’t you just go over? Knock on the door, ask for him?" Flynn said.

"I don’t want to have to make him face me if he doesn’t want to," Julie said pushing her face into her pillow.

"Well, you need to find a way to communicate with him. What about Alex and Reggie?"

"What if they don’t want to talk to me either?" She moved her head to the side to talk.

"Jules, listen to me for a sec. You are the best person I know. Literally. You are the nicest and kindest and if anyone told me otherwise we would throw hands. Now this is a misunderstanding and a pretty serious at that, that requires communication. I mean it will be better for both of you if you just work things out. You do have to make the first move though because he’s probably just trying to protect himself when he already feels too vulnerable. So, you’re gonna find one of the other two, see if they can help you out and I will come over tomorrow to brainstorm about creative solutions if that doesn’t work out, how does that sound?"

"I love you," Julie said.

"I know," Flynn said, a smile in her voice. "Don’t worry, we'll figure it out."

"Thank you," she said.

"Now get some sleep, we have school tomorrow," Flynn said.

"Yeah, okay," Julie said.

"Take a deep breath and calm down."

"I will."

And she did take a deep breath. She didn’t calm down until about an hour later, but she did eventually fall asleep and was eagerly waiting for her dad and Carlos to come out so they could leave already.

Just as she was tapping her foot impatiently, she caught sight of a very familiar flannel down the street. She immediately ran outside on the sidewalk and called his name.

"Reggie!"

Reggie looked up and smiled upon seeing Julie. It wasn’t his usual bright sunshine smile, there was some kind of sadness behind it, but he didn’t seem angry. That was a great start.

"Hey, Julie," he said as he came closer.

"There’s been a huge misunderstanding," she said, getting right into it.

"Yeah, that’s what Alex and I thought..." he said with a sigh. "Look, it’s a sensitive issue, you get that. Luke knows how great you are, really, but he hadn’t told you anything in so long because he didn’t want things to change and then it didn’t go as he thought it would. I get it can come as a shock-"

"No, it’s not just- Look, I just need to talk to him and explain," Julie said just as Carlos and her dad came out. "Please."

"I’ll try and talk to him, okay? But I’m sure it’s not going to last for long, you two have... something."

"Something?"

"Yes. Your chemistry's going off the charts. It’d be awful to lose that."

Julie really hoped she wasn’t blushing as much as she thought she was. "Look, just text me, okay? At any point throughout the day," she said as she backed up to the car.

"I will," he reassured her. Julie nodded and got in the car. At least that had gone well.

* * *

"It's perfect," Flynn said.

"Is it?" Julie asked as she cut the oranges in front of her.

"Yes! Crazy enough to work," Flynn said jumping on one of the stools behind the counter. "It was your idea!"

"I was joking!"

"Well, I love it."

"Someone's going to call the cops. The boys and I have been testing people's patience, I’m sure of it," Julie said as she started squeezing the oranges.

"Ray will handle it," Flynn dismissed it.

"Yes, I’m sure my dad will see it that way as well," she said with an eye roll.

"What are you making?" Flynn asked looking over at the trays, ingredients and mainly oranges lying around.

"Orange cake. Well, not exactly a cake, it’s a pie. Not a pie per se, it has _a lot_ of syrup. And oranges. It’s just a Greek dessert, don’t mind me, _I’m fine_ ," Julie said, indicating that she was very much not fine and maybe slightly freaking out. But this was supposed to fix her problems so there she was.

"Okay?" Flynn said.

"This is part of the plan, trust me," Julie said. Yes, she was freaking out, but she knew what she was doing.

"Aha, so we’re going ahead with the plan!" Flynn said, excited.

"You know," Julie said, holding an empty orange cup, "the sensible thing to do would be to say no. But I’m also pretty sure all sanity was thrown out the window long ago."

Two hours ago to be exact, just as she was getting home from school and she finally got a text from Reggie saying _Just give it sometime and it will get better._ And well, that had not sat well with her. Because yes, if everything was clear, she'd had no problem giving this some time, _but_ nothing was clear and she refused to let Luke believe she didn’t like him anymore or she pitied him or literally anything else that could be going through his head. So, should she go ahead with that crazy plan? Sure.

"You think it’s gonna work?" she asked.

"I think it certainly proves you’re serious and not just feeling guilty about what happened or something," Flynn said. "Also, I’ve seen you two together a couple of times and I mean, the boy gets heart eyes every time he looks at you. So do you, don’t get me wrong, you’re adorable together."

"Okay," Julie said trying to convince herself too. "Okay, yeah. And you know if someone calls the cops-"

"Why is someone calling the cops?" her dad appeared in the kitchen. Upon seeing all the oranges laying around his expression softened. "Orange pie?"

"I thought it could work," Julie said.

Her dad smiled. "So what was that about the cops?"

"We have a plan, Ray," Flynn said with a grin.

"Is it illegal?"

"No!" Julie rushed to say. "It’s definitely going to disturb the neighbors though and we thought you might want to be prepared for that."

"Disturb the neighbors how?" her dad asked.

"Well," Flynn began as she started to analyze the plan. It wasn’t anything too complex, but Julie would certainly need help with certain stuff.

"I think the neighbors will be fine," he said with a smile after Flynn was done.

"Will you help?" Julie asked hopefully.

"Of course, mija. When exactly are you planning to do it?"

"Tonight," she said, "while this is still fresh," she added pointing to the half made tray in front of her.

"Well, then, let’s start getting ready," Flynn said excited. Julie turned back to finish her dessert. If there were two things she knew she was good at it was this and singing. She was planning to put them both into action today.

* * *

"You are going to be great," Flynn said giving her a thumbs up.

"I feel like I’m gonna throw up," Julie said.

"That’s just the stress talking, you look _amazing_ ," Flynn said. "You called the guys?"

"I am calling now," Julie said taking a deep breath and dialing Alex's number. She waited a couple of seconds, pacing up and down in front of the studio when he answered.

"Hey," he said, "what’s up?"

Julie didn’t miss the awkward casualness in his voice or the fact that he didn’t mention her name. "Are you with Luke?" she asked.

"Uhm, yeah, kinda," he said.

"You’re across the street?" Julie hadn’t seen anyone on their backyard when she’d looked over, so she could only hope the boys were inside either house.

"Yeah?" he said, now turning it into a question.

"Okay, great, get ready," she said.

"For wh-" Alex started to ask, but Julie had already hung up. Everything would be explained in a few seconds anyway.

"You want me to stay?" Flynn asked.

"No, it’s okay," Julie said as she sat down on the piano bench, "I got this."

"Good luck." Flynn gave her one last smile and ran upstairs to the house.

Julie took a deep breath and brought the mic closer to her. Her dad had helped bring the piano outside, in front of the garage and set up the microphone while Flynn had gone through her closet, throwing clothes all around trying to find something for her to wear. Julie had just focused on getting the dessert done. This wasn't going to be the hard part.

"Hello," she said into the microphone. There was no one around, but she knew she was definitely heard up and and down the street. And definitely the few feet in the house across it. "I'm Julie and I would like to apologize to everyone hearing me now and thinking 'what the hell' but I’m trying to make things right with someone I really care about so spare me the next five minutes and please don’t call the cops."

Silence. Well, at least no one was shouting 'shut up', that was good.

"So, this is an amazing song I was given from the boy across the street who saved forty cupcakes from face-planting into the ground and carried on to help me get music back in my life when I thought I could never get it back. Thank you, Luke," she said and moved back taking another deep breath.

This was it.

_"Sometimes I think I'm falling down  
I wanna cry, I'm calling out  
For one more try to feel alive  
And when I feel lost and alone  
I know that I can make it home  
Fight through the dark and find the spark..."_

The song felt a little bare without the boys, but it wasn’t half bad for an acoustic version. And Julie was giving it her 110% like she always did. Well, maybe 120% today. This was important.

She sang passionately, going through the verses like she’d been singing them for years. There was something about the songs she’d worked on with Luke, they got stuck in your head. And when they sang together... Well, Julie might be biased, but that was magical. Maybe Reggie and Flynn had a point about the whole ‘chemistry thing'.

She was nearing the end, going into the last verse and belting out the last note like she had while trying to get back into the music program. She thought that was the best singing she’d ever done. This was probably better.

She brought the song to an end, breathing hard with a grin on her face. It didn’t matter why, singing just always made her feel better. She just hoped she wasn’t the only one.

She heard clapping from the house next door making her chuckle. Maybe the neighbors hadn’t actually been disturbed by this.

"You’ve got fans, Molina," she heard a voice and snapped her head around to see Luke coming down the steps.

"It's _your_ song," she said with a smile trying to hide her nervousness. _This_ was the hard part.

" _Your_ voice," he said.

Julie looked down at the piano and back to Luke. "Can we talk?" she asked him.

"Yeah," he said quietly with a nod, following her inside the studio.

They sat down on the couch, Julie taking the plate where she’d stuck the orange pie pieces and offered it to Luke. "I made something," she said.

"Julie, I-" Luke started, looking at the plate with a sad smile.

"It's basically a bunch of oranges and syrup. I went a bit overboard on the actual recipe. I cannot eat more than one bite," she said.

"Okay?" Luke said confused. "I don’t..." he started to say, but trailed off when he realized what she meant.

Julie smiled and pushed the plate closer to him. Luke took one of the pieces, looking at it apprehensively and took a bite. Julie waited, gripping the plate a bit harder than she should when Luke chuckled and looked at her with a grateful smile.

"This is good," he said making her face break out in a grin.

"My mom would make it and go off the recipe. The calories are obviously off the charts and neither my dad nor my brother and I could actually eat it, but she would say we have no idea about baking," Julie said with a wistful smile. "I didn’t know then that some days she needed something really strong to get an actual taste."

Realization dawned on Luke at that moment, Julie could tell, but she needed to finish this first. "I told you my mom passed away last year. She had cancer for a long time and it didn’t get better. She didn’t make it," she whispered. "It wasn’t easy, I mean I couldn’t even say the word during the first couple of months. And things got progressively better, I mean I even tried to get involved, maybe somehow help even a little, you remember the bake sale when we met." She took a shaky breath. "I'm so sorry I made you feel bad Luke, I really am. It just suddenly brought so many things back and I didn’t- I should have said something, I know, it was just-"

"Julie, you don’t have to explain," Luke said.

"No, I do, because I don’t want you to think that this changes anything between us. You- you’ve done so much for me, I don’t think you even realize how much and I can’t-" she stopped taking a deep breath to calm down. "You told me you don’t want to lose this. I don’t want to lose it either. I’m so sorry."

"Julie, don’t- don’t apologize," he said. "I know this is hard on a lot of people. I see my mom tearing up when she thinks I’m not looking and my dad being overzealous about doing certain things with me because he _needs_ to do something to help. Alex panics easier, Reggie always gravitates closer to me wherever we are... It's all there. I can’t pretend that I’m fine all the time to put them at ease because I’m not and they can’t pretend this is not affecting them. You know, it’s been a year and if I’ve learned anything it’s that communication is important."

"You don’t say," Julie said, making them both chuckle.

"Thank you for the song by the way. I’ve never been serenaded before," he added with a smirk.

"I highly doubt this counts as a serenade..."

"I mean people usually bring a guitar or something, but you went the extra mile and brought a whole piano, I admire the dedication," he continued.

"Well, the acoustics are indeed great..."

"And you made this," he said pointing at the plate Julie had left back on the table. "Just... thank you, really," he said, giving her a genuine smile.

"It wasn’t a big deal..." Julie tried to say.

"You’re right, it was a huge deal, thank you," Luke said. He looked at her for a couple of seconds before he broke the silence again. "Hey, can I ask for something?"

"What?"

"Since you went in all the trouble to get the piano out for just one song..." he said as he got up. "Sing with me?"

Julie smiled. "You don’t really have to ask for that," she said, following him. "You want a guitar? I don’t think the sound will carry over the piano and singing, but you know..."

"Sure," Luke said.

Julie grabbed her mom's old one from where it was leaning against the wall. No one had really played it in a while - her mom favorited the piano too - it’d be good to put it to use.

"It's gonna need some tuning," she said, handing it over to Luke.

They sat down on the piano bench, Luke on her left, tuning the guitar.

"What song?" Julie asked.

"The new one?" Luke said.

"Do we keep the mic?"

"Of course we keep the mic," Luke said and turned it over to him. "Hello again, this is Luke, the aforementioned boy from across the street. I am not going to apologize because Julie has the voice of an angel, so we are playing another song and really, if you haven’t called the cops on me and my bandmates all this time, I doubt this is going to be what pushes you over the edge," he said. "On that note..." He turned the mic back over to Julie and nodded.

Julie just smiled, shaking her head and played the opening notes.

_"Running from the past  
Tripping on the now  
What is lost can be found, it's obvious_

_And like a rubber ball  
We come bouncing back  
We all got a second act, inside of us..."_

Julie sang softly until Luke joined her with the guitar and they both went into the chorus. Their voices fit well together, harmonizing and completing each other. Luke carried on with his verse and they both went over the bridge, forgetting they weren’t alone for one second and that the whole neighborhood could hear them.

Just as Julie hit the high note one last time, Luke carrying on the chorus, they eased into the last verse, Luke leaving the guitar. Julie turned to look at him with a smile.

_"Running from the past_  
_Tripping on the now  
What is lost can be found, it's obvious..."_

They were inches away from each other, just like last time. It’d be so easy to just...

Luke leaned in at the same time she did, kissing her softly. There was suddenly applause and cheering all the way from across the street, making Julie chuckle as they pulled back.

"Are those the guys?" she asked.

"Yep," Luke said, "and that’s Flynn?" he asked, Julie only now noticing the equally as loud cheering coming from her own house.

"It sure is," she said making them both laugh again. "I’d say for my first time serenading someone this went pretty great," she said with a smile.

"And as the person being serenaded I’m agreeing with you," Luke said. "Hey, quick question, can I kiss you again?"

"I really have no idea what’s taking you so long," Julie said.

"Well played, Jules," he said with a smile as he leaned back in and kissed her, his hand around her neck, bringing her closer.

  
  


**(6)**

Julie had been working on auto pilot all morning. She was lucky she didn’t set the kitchen on fire or something because everything was working on pure muscle memory. She was hoping it would be enough to distract her, but nothing could keep her mind off of today.

She dropped all the tray contents on a plastic container and was out of the house and across the street in seconds, ringing the doorbell. Her grip was tight, maybe a bit too tight because she knew if she loosened it her hands would be shaking. But no, no she didn’t have to be worried, this was fine, everything would be fine, this was-

She jumped up when the door opened having almost forgotten where she was. She looked at Alex who seemed just as nervous as she was, no one knowing what to say.

"I made cookies," she eventually said.

"Okay," Alex said with a nod and moved so she could come inside.

"Hey, Jules," Reggie greeted her from the couch. He smiled at her, but she could tell he was nervous too.

"Hi," she said and dropped beside him on the couch. "This is fine, we're just overreacting, right?"

"Wha- You can’t ask that, please don’t ask that, I’m running on two hours of sleep!" Alex said as he paced around the living room.

"Everything's been fine up to now so we most probably are, but it's not going to stop us, is it?" Reggie said, trying to be the voice of logic through everything.

"Yeah, right, okay," Julie said and took the lid of the container, "cookie?"

"Yes," Reggie said, already reaching for one.

"I can’t physically eat anything," Alex said.

"Maybe you should, you haven’t eaten anything since last night," Reggie said, "it’s 2 pm."

"I will, I will," Alex said as he drummed his fingers against the couch.

"Should we do something?" Julie said.

"Like what?" Reggie asked as he took a bite from the cookie.

"I don’t know, anything! I need to do something. I made cookies and I don’t even remember making them, that is disconcerting to say the least. How long do we have to wait?" she asked.

"It can’t be that long, Luke said he’d text us the second they were done so... any time now," Reggie said as he reached for another cookie. Okay, there it was, Alex was too nervous and couldn’t eat anything, Reggie was too nervous and would eat the whole box. Not that Julie was going to stop him, whatever helped.

"Right, yeah," she breathed out and grabbed a cookie too. They'd come out pretty tasty considering Julie hadn't even been following an exact recipe. Thank God, she'd hate to give the guys food poisoning.

She still wasn't sure how this whole past year had gone by so quickly. Well, maybe it wasn't that quick, but sitting on the couch right now waiting, she really couldn't fathom how they'd been through so much during all this time.

She met Luke and the guys, they helped her get back into the music program in her school, she serenaded Luke in front of the whole neighborhood, they kissed, they started dating and that was just the beginning. She kept playing music with the guys, wrote a couple more songs with Luke, Luke switched to chemo pills, the side effects got better and then suddenly Christmas came around. They did secret Santa, Julie got Alex a pink sweater and Reggie got her a pair of earrings with a musical note each.

She freaked out when Luke had a fever two days before New Year's even though the guys told her it was probably nothing to worry about - _probably_ didn't sit well with her -, Luke insisted he was fine and didn't have to spend New Year's Eve in the hospital and even though he was actually fine, he had to stay in for monitoring so that was the story of how Julie spent New Year's Eve with Luke and the guys in the hospital and to be honest, she had a pretty good time. The nurses had let them stay in later since it was December 31st, but they still had to leave pretty soon after.

And then the New Year was here, yay! Life was good and school was good and Luke was doing so much better and then suddenly it was spring break and Alex was saying he got a gig for them and telling them to keep their next Friday free, Julie included and she was confused for a second - because what did she have to do with their band's gigs - and then the guys were looking at her confused - because, _uhm Julie, you've been part of this band for seven months now?_ \- so now Julie was in a band, good for her!

She made it through finals with only minimal freaking out, graduated and had a whole summer to get ready for college. Or well, a whole summer to spend with her friends and boyfriend before going to college. Also, being in a band? Great for college applications when you want to study music.

And that was how she got to Alex's couch on July 30th 2:12 pm, holding a box full of cookies she didn't remember making, waiting for Luke to text. If everything went well on that check up that meant he got two more weeks of pills and then he was done. _Done_. Yes, he'd still have to be careful and he'd still have to check in every once in a while to make sure everything was going well, but he would be okay and Julie really just wanted to cry a little.

Every check up had been good up to now, so they really didn't have any reason to worry unless something had gone incredibly wrong - _which it hadn't_ \- but Julie still felt like screaming. The tension needed to get out somehow, right?

"Okay, someone please say something," Alex said without interrupting his pacing behind the couch.

"Flynn said we hit 200k followers on Instagram," Julie suddenly remembered.

"What? How?" Reggie asked.

"Well, turns out we're kinda good," Julie said with a smile, "and she's been taking her manager job very seriously. She wants us to do a Q&A."

"People want us to do a Q&A?" Alex asked surprised.

"Yeah, she asked if we want to do it live or just post a hashtag and answer the questions on our own," Julie said. "She thinks we should do it live."

"200 _thousand_?" Reggie asked again. "That's _a lot_."

"I mean, it's good, isn't it?" Julie asked.

"It's amazing!" Reggie said.

"I support the hashtag idea," Alex said.

"Come on, Lex, it'll be fun!" Reggie said. "You got through a college interview, you can definitely get through an Instagram live."

"Yeah, but if-" Alex started to say when all of their phones ringed with a new notification at the same time and they scrambled to unlock them to find a single thumbs up from Luke on their group chat.

Julie breathed out, her face hurting from the grin she had on and her eyes teared up. No, she didn't want to cry, she wanted to shout, she wanted to sing, she wanted to bake a cake or something!

"I told you we were overreacting!" Reggie said, grinning as well. Julie leaned into him as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, bringing her closer.

"Okay," Alex said as he dropped beside her on the couch, seemingly exhausted, but he was beaming too. "I'll have that cookie now."

Julie chuckled and offered him the box. "You should take a nap."

"I'll go to sleep at 8, I don't care," he said as he basically inhaled the cookie. He closed his eyes with a sigh. "He's okay."

Julie's grip on the box finally loosened and she left it on the table. "We are so doing a live concert or something," she said. She just wanted to sing into a microphone for two hours straight.

"I'll do whatever you want," Alex said, taking another cookie.

"Instagram live," Reggie said.

"I'm in," Alex said with a nod, making Reggie cheer and Julie laugh. She was just so happy. They all were.

The ride from the hospital to their houses was twenty four minutes. So exactly twenty eight minutes later the doorbell rang and they all basically lunged from the couch to open the door.

"He- woah!" Luke started to say when the three of them tackled him in a group hug. "Hey, you guys," he said with a chuckle. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah..." the three of them said without moving. They stayed there for a couple more minutes.

"Would it be okay if we moved the party inside?" Luke asked.

"Yes! Julie made cookies," Reggie said with a smile as they finally pulled back.

"I mean I'm pretty sure I did. I definitely remember turning the oven on, that's a good thing," Julie said as they all moved inside, closing the door behind them.

"You made cookies?" Luke said with a grin and grabbed on from the box on the table, jumping on the couch. "I love you," he said as he took a bite.

Julie grinned in response, sitting down next to him, the guys following. Luke wrapped an arm around her waist bringing her closer and she relaxed against him. 

"So, what did I miss?" he asked. Julie chuckled as she leaned in and kissed his cheek. God, she was so happy.

"Oh, oh, we have 200k followers on Instagram!" Reggie said excited.

" _K_? As in _thousand_?" Luke asked, his eyes going wide.

"Yes, we're doing a Q&A," Alex said, "live."

"Live? You've grown so much," Luke said wiping away a fake tear.

"Shut up," Alex said with a smile.

"According to the comments people like it when you two sing to each other like there’s no one else around," Reggie said scrolling through his phone.

"Oh, so pretty much every second they’re together?" Alex said, Luke leaning slightly forward and throwing a cookie to his face. "Hey!" Alex protested.

"They’re good, try one," Luke said with a smirk, but his expression softened. Julie was willing to bet he was well aware Alex hadn’t eaten anything since last night. "We should get pizzas!" he said.

"Yes! Let’s celebrate!" Reggie agreed immediately.

"We should do something, should we sing? We should _sing_!" Julie said, having so much energy and desperately needing to do something with it.

"Yes!" Alex said, he and Reggie already getting up to get the instruments out of the garage.

"It's the middle of the day, people will definitely not be happy," Luke said.

"Do you really care?" Alex asked.

"Well, no," he said.

"Great, sold," Reggie said and they both went outside.

Julie took a second to turn around and look at Luke.

"What?" he asked softly, giving her a smile. She really loved that smile.

She leaned in, kissing him gently. "I love you too," she said, pulling only slightly back.

Luke's smile turned into a grin as he pulled her back in to kiss her again. And Julie really wanted to go sing her heart out, but she was content doing this for a little while longer.

  
  


**(+1)**

"Julie," Julie heard her name being called softly, but she barely reacted. "Julie," it came again and someone was shaking her shoulder lightly, "Jules."

"What?" she whined, burying her face into the pillow.

"Wake up."

"Why?" Wasn’t it Saturday? She was pretty sure it was Saturday, she didn’t have any classes, why couldn’t she sleep?

"Because I bribed the guys to leave the apartment for a couple of hours and if you don’t wake up there’s no point," Luke said.

Julie turned her head to the side and opened her eyes to look at him.

"Hi," he said with a smile.

"Hey," she said drowsily. "Why did you kick the guys out?" She didn’t fail to notice how Luke was already fully awake and vibrating in place.

"Happy birthday!" he said.

"Wh- oh shit." Julie was suddenly way more awake than before.

"Just what every guy wants to hear," Luke said and chuckled at Julie's eye roll.

"Thank you," she said snuggling in closer to him. "It's too early for my brain to be working properly."

"It’s 11:15."

"I’ve been studying non stop for three months straight, I can’t keep track of the days and time and stuff..." she said, burying her face in Luke chest, hearing him chuckle above her head.

"No, don’t fall back asleep, I have a surprise for you," he said, tugging at her hand.

"What surprise?" Julie got intrigued and looked up at him.

"Come on!" he said and got up incredibly fast.

Julie found the courage to sit up and drag herself out of bed. Luke must have gotten tired of waiting because as soon as she was on her feet, he wrapped his arms around her, throwing her over his shoulder.

"Luke! What are you doing?" she shouted.

"Two hours, Julie, I’ve seen you stay in bed all morning, we need to help each other here," he said as he got out of the bedroom and made his way to the kitchen. Julie sighed as he let him carry her.

The guys had gotten an apartment together right before their freshman year in college, while Julie was staying in campus. When the year ended and they realized she spent way more time in their apartment than her dorm, they just suggested she officially moved in with them. It wasn’t hard considering most of her stuff were already there.

The band was going great. Better than great to be honest, people were actually reaching out to them to book them for gigs - and the 700k Instagram followers didn’t hurt either. Life was good if a little busy with classes and homework and the band, but it was good. Luke was healthy, living with the guys was great and Julie was just happy.

Luke finally put her down and grabbed her shoulders, turning her around to face the kitchen table. "Ta da!" he said.

"Aww, you got me a cake?" Julie said with a smile. There’s nothing like eating a bunch of sugar for breakfast.

"Well, that was the original plan, but then Reggie said that you were planning to make a cake for your birthday and I had a crazy idea..."

Julie turned around to face him with a raised eyebrow. "Did you..."

"I most certainly did," he said with a proud smile. "We’ve been together for four years and I want to believe that I’ve learned something from you."

Julie was about to say something when he cut her off. "Giving the guys food poisoning was an honest mistake."

"I don’t think they saw it like that."

"I apologized a thousand times! I didn’t go near the kitchen for an entire month as promised! But this," he said again, moving to the other side of the table, "this is good. I promise. I would never give you food poisoning on your birthday. Or any other day."

Julie chuckled. "Thank you," she said, "I love it."

"Wait till you taste it," he said.

"Aha, okay," Julie said, taking a seat.

"Don't be nervous," he said as he started cutting up a piece.

"I'm not nervous."

"Jules, I’ve known you for four years," Luke said putting the piece on a plate and placing it in front of her. "I can see behind your lies."

"I'm not lying, I’m eating this," Julie stood her ground.

"Great," Luke said as he took a seat next to her.

"Great," Julie repeated.

"You’re not eating."

"I'm gonna!"

Julie cut off a small piece with her fork. She trusted Luke with her life and she trusted he had good intentions, but she'd also been there when Alex and Reggie were puking their guts out. So maybe she was a tiny bit nervous.

Well, okay, what’s the worse that could happen?

She ate the cake and chewed carefully waiting for the flavor to hit.

"Oh my God," she said, her eyes widening as she looked back down at her plate.

"What is it? Is it bad? Oh my God, I’ll hate myself if I give you food poisoning on your birthday!"

"Luke, this is really, really good," Julie said as she kept eating now more at ease.

"Oh thank God," he sighed in relief, "the recipe seemed pretty straightforward and I mean this is a chocolate cake so like just because it’s easy doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong."

"When did you even make this?" Julie asked.

"I got up early," he said with a shrug, grabbing a fork and cutting up a piece right from the whole cake. "Oh my God, I’m good!"

"You wanna make the cupcakes this time?" she asked. Julie hadn’t stopped taking part in bake sales raising money for cancer. She just had more people with her than just Flynn, her dad and brother now. She still made mainly cupcakes, it felt like the right thing to do after how she’d met Luke.

"God, no, we’re trying to raise money there, we can’t risk that!"

Julie laughed as she leaned in and kissed him. "I love you."

"I love you too," Luke said, beaming.

Julie felt an immense wave of happiness rushing through her in simple moments like this. The times they sang together couldn’t really compare to anything, but she loved the simple seemingly unimportant moments. Where she just felt happy and safe.

"We are not telling the guys you made this until after they’d had a taste, right?"

"Obviously."


End file.
